This book presents a new approach to how culture works in contemporary societies. Exposing our everyday myths and narratives in a series of empirical studies that range from Watergate to the ...
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This book presents a new approach to how culture works in contemporary societies. Exposing our everyday myths and narratives in a series of empirical studies that range from Watergate to the Holocaust, it shows how these unseen yet potent cultural structures translate into concrete actions and institutions. Only when these deep patterns of meaning are revealed, it argues, can we understand the stubborn staying power of violence and degradation, but also the steady persistence of hope. By understanding the darker structures that restrict our imagination, we can seek to transform them. By recognizing the culture structures that sustain hope, we can allow our idealistic imaginations to gain more traction in the world.Less

The Meanings of Social Life : A Cultural Sociology

Jeffrey C. Alexander

Published in print: 2003-10-09

This book presents a new approach to how culture works in contemporary societies. Exposing our everyday myths and narratives in a series of empirical studies that range from Watergate to the Holocaust, it shows how these unseen yet potent cultural structures translate into concrete actions and institutions. Only when these deep patterns of meaning are revealed, it argues, can we understand the stubborn staying power of violence and degradation, but also the steady persistence of hope. By understanding the darker structures that restrict our imagination, we can seek to transform them. By recognizing the culture structures that sustain hope, we can allow our idealistic imaginations to gain more traction in the world.

The post-world war II German-Israeli reparations program is the largest, most comprehensive reparations program ever implemented. Traditionally, reparations were supported by the vanquished and were ...
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The post-world war II German-Israeli reparations program is the largest, most comprehensive reparations program ever implemented. Traditionally, reparations were supported by the vanquished and were designed to compensate the victor for the damages caused during the war. The Wiedergutmachung (literally “making the good again”) program as it is called in Germany, or Shilumim (the payments) as Israelis usually prefer to refer to it, innovates in many areas and goes beyond this interstate framework. Jewish leaders participated in the Luxembourg negotiations that led to the signature of the 1952 treaty, and community networks played a crucial role in the distribution of the money to the victims. Civil society groups played an instrumental role in the United States as plans for reparations were being discussed during the war. Neither the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) nor Israel existed during the war. Reparations have been paid to the state of Israel and were paid to Jewish Holocaust survivors regardless of their nationality. The FRG benefited politically and economically from this treaty. It was able to enter the international arena and establish diplomatic relations with Israel, whose economy greatly benefited from the money it received.Less

German Reparations to the Jews after World War II : A Turning Point in the History of Reparations

Ariel ColonomosAndrea Armstrong

Published in print: 2006-03-01

The post-world war II German-Israeli reparations program is the largest, most comprehensive reparations program ever implemented. Traditionally, reparations were supported by the vanquished and were designed to compensate the victor for the damages caused during the war. The Wiedergutmachung (literally “making the good again”) program as it is called in Germany, or Shilumim (the payments) as Israelis usually prefer to refer to it, innovates in many areas and goes beyond this interstate framework. Jewish leaders participated in the Luxembourg negotiations that led to the signature of the 1952 treaty, and community networks played a crucial role in the distribution of the money to the victims. Civil society groups played an instrumental role in the United States as plans for reparations were being discussed during the war. Neither the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) nor Israel existed during the war. Reparations have been paid to the state of Israel and were paid to Jewish Holocaust survivors regardless of their nationality. The FRG benefited politically and economically from this treaty. It was able to enter the international arena and establish diplomatic relations with Israel, whose economy greatly benefited from the money it received.

Over the centuries, New Testament texts have often been read in ways that reflect and encourage anti‐Judaism. Since the Holocaust, Christian scholars have increasingly recognized this inheritance. ...
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Over the centuries, New Testament texts have often been read in ways that reflect and encourage anti‐Judaism. Since the Holocaust, Christian scholars have increasingly recognized this inheritance. New Testament scholars have not directly confronted the horror of Nazi crimes, Odlenhage argues, but their work has nonetheless been deeply affected by the events of the Holocaust. By placing twentieth‐century biblical scholarship within its specific historical and cultural contexts, she is able to trace the process by which the Holocaust gradually moved into the collective consciousness of New Testament scholars, both in Germany and in the U.S.. Her focus is on the interpretation of the parables of Jesus by scholars, including Joachim Jeremias, Wolfgang Harnisch, Paul Ricoeur and John Dominic Crossan. In conclusion, Oldenhage offers her own reading of the parable of the wicked husbandmen, demonstrating how the turn from historical criticism to literary theory opens up the text to interpretation in light of the Holocaust. Thereby, she seeks to fashion a biblical hermeneutics that consciously works with memories of the Holocaust. If the parables are to be meaningful in our time, Oldenhage contends, we must take account of the troubling resonance between these ancient Christian stories and the atrocities of Auschwitz.Less

Parables for Our Time : Rereading New Testament Scholarship after the Holocaust

Tania Oldenhage

Published in print: 2002-05-16

Over the centuries, New Testament texts have often been read in ways that reflect and encourage anti‐Judaism. Since the Holocaust, Christian scholars have increasingly recognized this inheritance. New Testament scholars have not directly confronted the horror of Nazi crimes, Odlenhage argues, but their work has nonetheless been deeply affected by the events of the Holocaust. By placing twentieth‐century biblical scholarship within its specific historical and cultural contexts, she is able to trace the process by which the Holocaust gradually moved into the collective consciousness of New Testament scholars, both in Germany and in the U.S.. Her focus is on the interpretation of the parables of Jesus by scholars, including Joachim Jeremias, Wolfgang Harnisch, Paul Ricoeur and John Dominic Crossan. In conclusion, Oldenhage offers her own reading of the parable of the wicked husbandmen, demonstrating how the turn from historical criticism to literary theory opens up the text to interpretation in light of the Holocaust. Thereby, she seeks to fashion a biblical hermeneutics that consciously works with memories of the Holocaust. If the parables are to be meaningful in our time, Oldenhage contends, we must take account of the troubling resonance between these ancient Christian stories and the atrocities of Auschwitz.

How has the Jewish family changed over the course of the 20th century? How has it remained the same? How do Jewish families see themselves — historically, socially, politically, and economically — ...
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How has the Jewish family changed over the course of the 20th century? How has it remained the same? How do Jewish families see themselves — historically, socially, politically, and economically — and how would they like to be seen by others? This volume presents a variety of perspectives on Jewish families coping with life and death in the twentieth century. It is comprised of symposium papers, essays, and review articles of works published on such fundamental subjects as the Holocaust, anti-Semitism, genocide, history, literature, the arts, religion, education, Zionism, Israel, and the Middle East. It will appeal to all students and scholars of the sociocultural history of the Jewish people, especially those interested in the nature of Jewish intermarriage and/or family life, the changing fate of the Orthodox Jewish family, the varied but widespread Americanization of the Jewish family, and similar concerns.Less

Studies in Contemporary Jewry: Volume XIV: Coping with Life and Death: Jewish Families in the Twentieth Century

Published in print: 1999-05-06

How has the Jewish family changed over the course of the 20th century? How has it remained the same? How do Jewish families see themselves — historically, socially, politically, and economically — and how would they like to be seen by others? This volume presents a variety of perspectives on Jewish families coping with life and death in the twentieth century. It is comprised of symposium papers, essays, and review articles of works published on such fundamental subjects as the Holocaust, anti-Semitism, genocide, history, literature, the arts, religion, education, Zionism, Israel, and the Middle East. It will appeal to all students and scholars of the sociocultural history of the Jewish people, especially those interested in the nature of Jewish intermarriage and/or family life, the changing fate of the Orthodox Jewish family, the varied but widespread Americanization of the Jewish family, and similar concerns.

The Third Reich met its end in the spring of 1945 in an unparalleled wave of suicides. Hitler, Goebbels, Bormann, Himmler and later Göring all killed themselves. These deaths represent only the tip ...
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The Third Reich met its end in the spring of 1945 in an unparalleled wave of suicides. Hitler, Goebbels, Bormann, Himmler and later Göring all killed themselves. These deaths represent only the tip of an iceberg of a massive wave of suicides that also touched upon ordinary lives. As this suicide epidemic has no historical precedent or parallel, it can tell us much about the Third Reich's peculiar self-destructiveness and the depths of Nazi fanaticism. The book looks at the suicides of both Nazis and ordinary people in Germany between 1918 and 1945, from the end of World War I until the end of World War II, including the mass suicides of German Jews during the Holocaust. It shows how suicides among different population groups, including supporters, opponents, and victims of the regime, responded to the social, cultural, economic and, political context of the time. The book also analyses changes and continuities in individual and societal responses to suicide over time, especially with regard to the Weimar Republic and the post-1945 era.Less

Suicide in Nazi Germany

Christian Goeschel

Published in print: 2009-02-26

The Third Reich met its end in the spring of 1945 in an unparalleled wave of suicides. Hitler, Goebbels, Bormann, Himmler and later Göring all killed themselves. These deaths represent only the tip of an iceberg of a massive wave of suicides that also touched upon ordinary lives. As this suicide epidemic has no historical precedent or parallel, it can tell us much about the Third Reich's peculiar self-destructiveness and the depths of Nazi fanaticism. The book looks at the suicides of both Nazis and ordinary people in Germany between 1918 and 1945, from the end of World War I until the end of World War II, including the mass suicides of German Jews during the Holocaust. It shows how suicides among different population groups, including supporters, opponents, and victims of the regime, responded to the social, cultural, economic and, political context of the time. The book also analyses changes and continuities in individual and societal responses to suicide over time, especially with regard to the Weimar Republic and the post-1945 era.

A review of the book, Genocide and Rescue: The Holocaust in Hungary by David Cesarani is presented. The deportation and murder of 435,000 Hungarian Jews during the last months of the Second World War ...
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A review of the book, Genocide and Rescue: The Holocaust in Hungary by David Cesarani is presented. The deportation and murder of 435,000 Hungarian Jews during the last months of the Second World War is the most painful chapter in the history of Hungarian Jewry. The book investigates the motivations and morality of various actions taken by different actors in this drama. If events of the Hungarian Holocaust constitute a kind of moral drama, the same is true of the historical narrative, which also has its heroes, villains and neutral figures, and whose narrator, as Hayden White puts it, recounts the story with the “author's moral authority”.Less

David Cesarani (ed.), Genocide and Rescue: The Holocaust in Hungary. London and New York: Berg, 1997. 220 pp.

Andrea Petö

Published in print: 2000-02-03

A review of the book, Genocide and Rescue: The Holocaust in Hungary by David Cesarani is presented. The deportation and murder of 435,000 Hungarian Jews during the last months of the Second World War is the most painful chapter in the history of Hungarian Jewry. The book investigates the motivations and morality of various actions taken by different actors in this drama. If events of the Hungarian Holocaust constitute a kind of moral drama, the same is true of the historical narrative, which also has its heroes, villains and neutral figures, and whose narrator, as Hayden White puts it, recounts the story with the “author's moral authority”.

A review of the book, Doors to Madame Marie by Odette Meyers is presented. The book is a personal chronicle of survival, both physical and moral. Not unlike The Diary of Anne Frank in its depiction ...
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A review of the book, Doors to Madame Marie by Odette Meyers is presented. The book is a personal chronicle of survival, both physical and moral. Not unlike The Diary of Anne Frank in its depiction of a single family's fate during the Holocaust, it has a totally different focus — the continuation of life through and after the war, and the costs of survival.Less

Theodore H. Friedgut

Published in print: 2000-02-03

A review of the book, Doors to Madame Marie by Odette Meyers is presented. The book is a personal chronicle of survival, both physical and moral. Not unlike The Diary of Anne Frank in its depiction of a single family's fate during the Holocaust, it has a totally different focus — the continuation of life through and after the war, and the costs of survival.

A review of the book, The Union Kommando in Auschwitz: The Auschwitz Munitions Factory through the Eyes of Its Former Slave Laborers (Studies in the Shoah, Vol. 13) by Lore Shelly (ed. and trans.) is ...
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A review of the book, The Union Kommando in Auschwitz: The Auschwitz Munitions Factory through the Eyes of Its Former Slave Laborers (Studies in the Shoah, Vol. 13) by Lore Shelly (ed. and trans.) is presented. Some historians are wont to proclaim that they do not rely upon oral history but rather on contemporaneous documentation. The recollections of survivors are seemingly unreliable: they are not the stuff of history, certainly not of serious historians. Lore Shelly's disciplined efforts to compile the testimonies of scores of workers who worked in the munitions factory at Auschwitz shows us the possibilities and the difficulties of oral history. Shelly also demonstrates how indispensable oral history is for understanding the Holocaust.Less

Lore Shelly (ed. and trans.), The Union Kommando in Auschwitz: The Auschwitz Munitions Factory through the Eyes of Its Former Slave Laborers (Studies in the Shoah, Vol. 13). Latham: University Press of America, 1996. 421 pp.

Michael Berenbaum

Published in print: 2000-02-03

A review of the book, The Union Kommando in Auschwitz: The Auschwitz Munitions Factory through the Eyes of Its Former Slave Laborers (Studies in the Shoah, Vol. 13) by Lore Shelly (ed. and trans.) is presented. Some historians are wont to proclaim that they do not rely upon oral history but rather on contemporaneous documentation. The recollections of survivors are seemingly unreliable: they are not the stuff of history, certainly not of serious historians. Lore Shelly's disciplined efforts to compile the testimonies of scores of workers who worked in the munitions factory at Auschwitz shows us the possibilities and the difficulties of oral history. Shelly also demonstrates how indispensable oral history is for understanding the Holocaust.

A review of the book, The Politics of Tradition: Agudat Yisrael in Poland, 1916–1939 by Gershon C. Bacon is presented. Students of interwar Polish Jewry, modern Jewish politics and Orthodoxy will ...
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A review of the book, The Politics of Tradition: Agudat Yisrael in Poland, 1916–1939 by Gershon C. Bacon is presented. Students of interwar Polish Jewry, modern Jewish politics and Orthodoxy will welcome Gershon Bacon's expansion of his authoritative dissertation on Agudat Israel. The present study is a comprehensive investigation of the origins and diverse fields of activity of Agudat Israel in Poland. In addition, the author has provided an epilogue that chronicles Aguda activity during the Holocaust, as well as its activities in the state of Israel.Less

Alan Mittleman

Published in print: 2000-02-03

A review of the book, The Politics of Tradition: Agudat Yisrael in Poland, 1916–1939 by Gershon C. Bacon is presented. Students of interwar Polish Jewry, modern Jewish politics and Orthodoxy will welcome Gershon Bacon's expansion of his authoritative dissertation on Agudat Israel. The present study is a comprehensive investigation of the origins and diverse fields of activity of Agudat Israel in Poland. In addition, the author has provided an epilogue that chronicles Aguda activity during the Holocaust, as well as its activities in the state of Israel.

A review of the book, Lema 'an herutenu veherutkhem: habund bepolin 1939–1949 (For Our Freedom and Yours: The Jewish Labor Bund in Poland 1939–1949) by Daniel Blatman is presented. Blatman's pioneering study of the Bund during the Second World War and afterwards places its author squarely within the latter camp. In his words, “the Bund's struggle during the Holocaust to survive, on the one hand, as a movement bearing a particular ideological legacy and, on the other, to integrate itself into the [overall] Jewish struggle for survival represents an additional aspect of the manner in which Jews coped with the burden of that time” — an aspect worth studying because it embodied “a fundamentally different perception” of the threat facing Polish Jewry “than that of the Zionist youth movements and parties” whose perspective “has been adopted without dissent by historians and scholars in Israel”.Less

David Engel

Published in print: 2000-02-03

A review of the book, Lema 'an herutenu veherutkhem: habund bepolin 1939–1949 (For Our Freedom and Yours: The Jewish Labor Bund in Poland 1939–1949) by Daniel Blatman is presented. Blatman's pioneering study of the Bund during the Second World War and afterwards places its author squarely within the latter camp. In his words, “the Bund's struggle during the Holocaust to survive, on the one hand, as a movement bearing a particular ideological legacy and, on the other, to integrate itself into the [overall] Jewish struggle for survival represents an additional aspect of the manner in which Jews coped with the burden of that time” — an aspect worth studying because it embodied “a fundamentally different perception” of the threat facing Polish Jewry “than that of the Zionist youth movements and parties” whose perspective “has been adopted without dissent by historians and scholars in Israel”.

The book records attempts in three countries — Germany, South Africa, and the United States — to educate patriots who are neither loveless critics nor uncritical lovers of their nation, but rather ...
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The book records attempts in three countries — Germany, South Africa, and the United States — to educate patriots who are neither loveless critics nor uncritical lovers of their nation, but rather loving critics. How does a national public learn to acknowledge the “dark side” of their country’s history? In the post-1945 years, Germans slowly but surely came to pay public attention to the evils of the Nazi era. In an astonishing accumulation of memorials, museums, films, anniversaries, and high school history books, the country has put its future generations on notice: “Never again”. Post-apartheid South Africa has seen comparable developments, especially in its Truth and Reconciliation Commission, new Constitution, memorials, and radically revised school text books. The United States, with a culture more focused on the future than the past, is undergoing a similar but slower public process. Two great crimes mark its national past: slavery and the fate of the people called Indians. The US is beginning to confront these collective crimes with new realism in new laws, museums, films, memorials, and history books. A political culture grows in its capacity for justice by remembering injustice. For a people not to remember the misdeeds of their past is to risk repeating them. Public memory requires concrete public signs, rituals, memorials, and education. This book seeks to record the attempts of these three countries to give public expression to justice by remembering injustice.Less

Honest Patriots : Loving a Country Enough to Remember Its Misdeeds

Donald W. Shriver

Published in print: 2005-03-17

The book records attempts in three countries — Germany, South Africa, and the United States — to educate patriots who are neither loveless critics nor uncritical lovers of their nation, but rather loving critics. How does a national public learn to acknowledge the “dark side” of their country’s history? In the post-1945 years, Germans slowly but surely came to pay public attention to the evils of the Nazi era. In an astonishing accumulation of memorials, museums, films, anniversaries, and high school history books, the country has put its future generations on notice: “Never again”. Post-apartheid South Africa has seen comparable developments, especially in its Truth and Reconciliation Commission, new Constitution, memorials, and radically revised school text books. The United States, with a culture more focused on the future than the past, is undergoing a similar but slower public process. Two great crimes mark its national past: slavery and the fate of the people called Indians. The US is beginning to confront these collective crimes with new realism in new laws, museums, films, memorials, and history books. A political culture grows in its capacity for justice by remembering injustice. For a people not to remember the misdeeds of their past is to risk repeating them. Public memory requires concrete public signs, rituals, memorials, and education. This book seeks to record the attempts of these three countries to give public expression to justice by remembering injustice.

Foreigners still wonder if Germans can really be trusted to remember the evils of Nazism. This chapter documents the array of public measures which the country has taken in the past 60 years to ...
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Foreigners still wonder if Germans can really be trusted to remember the evils of Nazism. This chapter documents the array of public measures which the country has taken in the past 60 years to educate its upcoming generations of citizens about those evils, with the hope, “Never again”. Documented here are the Holocaust memorials, anniversaries, museums, and school texts that have qualified Germany now as having established a “culture of memory” with few equals elsewhere in the world.Less

Germany Remembers

Donald W.
Shriver, Jr.

Published in print: 2005-03-17

Foreigners still wonder if Germans can really be trusted to remember the evils of Nazism. This chapter documents the array of public measures which the country has taken in the past 60 years to educate its upcoming generations of citizens about those evils, with the hope, “Never again”. Documented here are the Holocaust memorials, anniversaries, museums, and school texts that have qualified Germany now as having established a “culture of memory” with few equals elsewhere in the world.

What causes genocide? Why do some stand by, doing nothing, while others risk their lives to help the persecuted? This book analyzes riveting interviews with bystanders, Nazi supporters, and rescuers ...
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What causes genocide? Why do some stand by, doing nothing, while others risk their lives to help the persecuted? This book analyzes riveting interviews with bystanders, Nazi supporters, and rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust to lay bare critical psychological forces operating during genocide. The book's examination of these moving—and disturbing—interviews underscores the significance of identity for moral choice. The book finds that self-image and identity—especially the sense of self in relation to others—determine and delineate our choice options, not just morally but cognitively. It introduces the concept of moral salience to explain how we establish a critical psychological relationship with others, classifying individuals in need as “people just like us” or reducing them to strangers perceived as different, threatening, or even beyond the boundaries of our concern. The book explicates the psychological dehumanization that is a prerequisite for genocide and uses knowledge of human behavior during the Holocaust to develop a broader theory of moral choice, one applicable to other forms of ethnic, religious, racial, and sectarian prejudice, aggression, and violence. It suggests that identity is more fundamental than reasoning in our treatment of others.Less

Ethics in an Age of Terror and Genocide : Identity and Moral Choice

Kristen Renwick Monroe

Published in print: 2011-11-06

What causes genocide? Why do some stand by, doing nothing, while others risk their lives to help the persecuted? This book analyzes riveting interviews with bystanders, Nazi supporters, and rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust to lay bare critical psychological forces operating during genocide. The book's examination of these moving—and disturbing—interviews underscores the significance of identity for moral choice. The book finds that self-image and identity—especially the sense of self in relation to others—determine and delineate our choice options, not just morally but cognitively. It introduces the concept of moral salience to explain how we establish a critical psychological relationship with others, classifying individuals in need as “people just like us” or reducing them to strangers perceived as different, threatening, or even beyond the boundaries of our concern. The book explicates the psychological dehumanization that is a prerequisite for genocide and uses knowledge of human behavior during the Holocaust to develop a broader theory of moral choice, one applicable to other forms of ethnic, religious, racial, and sectarian prejudice, aggression, and violence. It suggests that identity is more fundamental than reasoning in our treatment of others.

Is there really such a thing as Jewish music? And does it survive as an expressive practice of worship and identity against modernity? This book poses such questions in new and critical ways by ...
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Is there really such a thing as Jewish music? And does it survive as an expressive practice of worship and identity against modernity? This book poses such questions in new and critical ways by surveying a vast diasporic landscape, taking into consideration the many ways music historically witnessed the confrontation between modern Jews and the world around them, from the waning of the Middle Ages until the Holocaust. The book examines the confluence of many styles and repertories as Jewish music: the sacred and the secular; folk and popular music; songs in which Jewish languages — Yiddish, Ladino, Hebrew — survived in isolation and songs that transformed the nations in which they lived. When Jewish music entered modernity, authenticity became an ideal supplanted by composite traditions. Klezmer music emerged in communities cohabited by Jews and Roma; Jewish cabaret resulted from the collaborations of migrant Jews and non-Jews in nineteenth-century Berlin, Budapest, and Vienna; cantors and composers experimented with new sounds. Modern Jewish music was and is varied, and this book is notable for the ways in which the borders between repertories are crossed and modernity is enriched by the shift of Jewish music from cultural peripheries to the center. Understanding the crisis of modernity — the Holocaust and its aftermath — is crucial to the challenge this book poses for understanding music in our own day.Less

Jewish Music and Modernity

Philip Bohlman

Published in print: 2008-10-22

Is there really such a thing as Jewish music? And does it survive as an expressive practice of worship and identity against modernity? This book poses such questions in new and critical ways by surveying a vast diasporic landscape, taking into consideration the many ways music historically witnessed the confrontation between modern Jews and the world around them, from the waning of the Middle Ages until the Holocaust. The book examines the confluence of many styles and repertories as Jewish music: the sacred and the secular; folk and popular music; songs in which Jewish languages — Yiddish, Ladino, Hebrew — survived in isolation and songs that transformed the nations in which they lived. When Jewish music entered modernity, authenticity became an ideal supplanted by composite traditions. Klezmer music emerged in communities cohabited by Jews and Roma; Jewish cabaret resulted from the collaborations of migrant Jews and non-Jews in nineteenth-century Berlin, Budapest, and Vienna; cantors and composers experimented with new sounds. Modern Jewish music was and is varied, and this book is notable for the ways in which the borders between repertories are crossed and modernity is enriched by the shift of Jewish music from cultural peripheries to the center. Understanding the crisis of modernity — the Holocaust and its aftermath — is crucial to the challenge this book poses for understanding music in our own day.

Identifying certain forms of music as Jewish and establishing the criteria for how Jewishness in music would be recognized preoccupied ideological and aesthetic concerns of many Jews entering ...
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Identifying certain forms of music as Jewish and establishing the criteria for how Jewishness in music would be recognized preoccupied ideological and aesthetic concerns of many Jews entering modernity by the end of the nineteenth century. This chapter concerns itself primarily with the ways in which Jewishness would counterbalance the nineteenth-century notion of absolute music, in which textual meaning negated contextual functions. Richard Wagner’s invective 1850 essay on “Jewishness in Music” unleashed responses until the Holocaust, and the chapter summarizes many of these, especially by leading Jewish music critics. Examples are drawn from Mahler, Jewish social organizations, and political musical traditions of Bertolt Brecht, Hanns Eisler, Kurt Tucholsky, and others from the Weimar period separating the world wars.Less

JEWISHNESS IN MUSIC: MIRRORS OF SELFNESS IN JEWISH MUSIC

Philip V. Bohlman

Published in print: 2008-10-22

Identifying certain forms of music as Jewish and establishing the criteria for how Jewishness in music would be recognized preoccupied ideological and aesthetic concerns of many Jews entering modernity by the end of the nineteenth century. This chapter concerns itself primarily with the ways in which Jewishness would counterbalance the nineteenth-century notion of absolute music, in which textual meaning negated contextual functions. Richard Wagner’s invective 1850 essay on “Jewishness in Music” unleashed responses until the Holocaust, and the chapter summarizes many of these, especially by leading Jewish music critics. Examples are drawn from Mahler, Jewish social organizations, and political musical traditions of Bertolt Brecht, Hanns Eisler, Kurt Tucholsky, and others from the Weimar period separating the world wars.

This chapter employs the metaphors of drama and the stage to bear witness to the vastly varied forms Jewish music had taken on the eve of World War II and the Holocaust. The first stages are those of ...
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This chapter employs the metaphors of drama and the stage to bear witness to the vastly varied forms Jewish music had taken on the eve of World War II and the Holocaust. The first stages are those of popular theater, especially cabarets like the original Budapest Orpheum Society, which mixed styles and genres, and revolutionized European popular music and the music brought by immigrants to North America and used for Yiddish theater and film. By allowing hybridity, the stage also encouraged Jews and non-Jews to cross the cultural borders separating them. The Holocaust radically altered the path of border crossing, however, and the chapter concludes by examining case studies of music in the Holocaust and the concentration camps, especially that of Viktor Ullmann (1898–1944) from the camp at Terezín, which together provide transcendence in the historical drama of European Jewish music.Less

STAGING JEWISH MUSIC

Philip V. Bohlman

Published in print: 2008-10-22

This chapter employs the metaphors of drama and the stage to bear witness to the vastly varied forms Jewish music had taken on the eve of World War II and the Holocaust. The first stages are those of popular theater, especially cabarets like the original Budapest Orpheum Society, which mixed styles and genres, and revolutionized European popular music and the music brought by immigrants to North America and used for Yiddish theater and film. By allowing hybridity, the stage also encouraged Jews and non-Jews to cross the cultural borders separating them. The Holocaust radically altered the path of border crossing, however, and the chapter concludes by examining case studies of music in the Holocaust and the concentration camps, especially that of Viktor Ullmann (1898–1944) from the camp at Terezín, which together provide transcendence in the historical drama of European Jewish music.

Holocaust denial laws are among the most controversial restrictions on freedom of expression because, in their strongest form, they forbid people to contest the past. The pace of limiting racist ...
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Holocaust denial laws are among the most controversial restrictions on freedom of expression because, in their strongest form, they forbid people to contest the past. The pace of limiting racist speech has been much faster in Holocaust denial laws than in any other realm. These provisions have spread quickly and have been significantly broadened since the mid-1980s. They have also been enforced with increasing penalties. Because the connection between Holocaust denial and hatred, discrimination, and violence is often less immediate than with other forms of malicious racist statements, this chapter takes a close look at these provisions. It examines the passage and expansion of laws since the 1980s, and uses the case of notorious denier David Irving as a window into how they have been enforced in a number of countries.Less

Holocaust Denial and Its Extremes

Erik Bleich

Published in print: 2011-09-05

Holocaust denial laws are among the most controversial restrictions on freedom of expression because, in their strongest form, they forbid people to contest the past. The pace of limiting racist speech has been much faster in Holocaust denial laws than in any other realm. These provisions have spread quickly and have been significantly broadened since the mid-1980s. They have also been enforced with increasing penalties. Because the connection between Holocaust denial and hatred, discrimination, and violence is often less immediate than with other forms of malicious racist statements, this chapter takes a close look at these provisions. It examines the passage and expansion of laws since the 1980s, and uses the case of notorious denier David Irving as a window into how they have been enforced in a number of countries.

This chapter develops a critical reading of what Oldenhage calls the “limit‐rhetoric” in Ricoeur's 1975 essay “Biblical Hermeneutics.” Oldenhage points out that during the 1970s the notion of limit ...
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This chapter develops a critical reading of what Oldenhage calls the “limit‐rhetoric” in Ricoeur's 1975 essay “Biblical Hermeneutics.” Oldenhage points out that during the 1970s the notion of limit was already becoming a crucial trope within Holocaust literary studies. Focusing on Terrence Des Pres's study of Holocaust testimonies, Oldenhage explores how notions such as “limit‐situation” or “extremity” helped Des Pres to draw attention to the experiences of Holocaust survivors that so far had been ignored or misinterpreted. By cross‐reading the fields of Holocaust studies and New Testament parable studies, Oldenhage raises questions about Ricoeur's deployment of the charged trope of “limit‐experiences” in relation to the parables of Jesus.Less

Limit‐Experiences of Human Life

Tania Oldenhage

Published in print: 2002-05-16

This chapter develops a critical reading of what Oldenhage calls the “limit‐rhetoric” in Ricoeur's 1975 essay “Biblical Hermeneutics.” Oldenhage points out that during the 1970s the notion of limit was already becoming a crucial trope within Holocaust literary studies. Focusing on Terrence Des Pres's study of Holocaust testimonies, Oldenhage explores how notions such as “limit‐situation” or “extremity” helped Des Pres to draw attention to the experiences of Holocaust survivors that so far had been ignored or misinterpreted. By cross‐reading the fields of Holocaust studies and New Testament parable studies, Oldenhage raises questions about Ricoeur's deployment of the charged trope of “limit‐experiences” in relation to the parables of Jesus.

This book explains why the Holocaust has come to be considered the central event of the 20th century, and what this means. It debates how the Holocaust has evolved over the years, and the profound ...
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This book explains why the Holocaust has come to be considered the central event of the 20th century, and what this means. It debates how the Holocaust has evolved over the years, and the profound effects it will have on the way we envision the future. Presenting controversial work, and following up with challenging and equally provocative responses to it, the book offers a sweeping historical reconstruction of the Jewish mass murder as it evolved in the popular imagination of Western peoples, as well as an examination of its consequences. The book's inquiry points to a broad cultural transition that took place in Western societies after World War II—from confidence in moving past the most terrible of Nazi wartime atrocities to pessimism about the possibility for overcoming violence, ethnic conflict, and war. The Holocaust has become the central tragedy of modern times, an event which can no longer be overcome, but one that offers possibilities to extend its moral lessons beyond Jews to victims of other types of secular and religious strife. Following the main chapter's controversial thesis is a series of responses by distinguished scholars in the humanities and social sciences, considering the implications of the universal moral relevance of the Holocaust. A final response comes in a postscript, focusing on the repercussions of the Holocaust in Israel.Less

Remembering the Holocaust : A Debate

Jeffrey C. Alexander

Published in print: 2009-07-27

This book explains why the Holocaust has come to be considered the central event of the 20th century, and what this means. It debates how the Holocaust has evolved over the years, and the profound effects it will have on the way we envision the future. Presenting controversial work, and following up with challenging and equally provocative responses to it, the book offers a sweeping historical reconstruction of the Jewish mass murder as it evolved in the popular imagination of Western peoples, as well as an examination of its consequences. The book's inquiry points to a broad cultural transition that took place in Western societies after World War II—from confidence in moving past the most terrible of Nazi wartime atrocities to pessimism about the possibility for overcoming violence, ethnic conflict, and war. The Holocaust has become the central tragedy of modern times, an event which can no longer be overcome, but one that offers possibilities to extend its moral lessons beyond Jews to victims of other types of secular and religious strife. Following the main chapter's controversial thesis is a series of responses by distinguished scholars in the humanities and social sciences, considering the implications of the universal moral relevance of the Holocaust. A final response comes in a postscript, focusing on the repercussions of the Holocaust in Israel.

This book provides a powerful framework in which to examine the subject of German collective memory, which for more than a half century has been shaped by the experience of Nazism, World War II, and ...
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This book provides a powerful framework in which to examine the subject of German collective memory, which for more than a half century has been shaped by the experience of Nazism, World War II, and the Holocaust. Finding the assumptions of many writers and scholars shortsighted, the author surveys the evidence of postwar German memory in the context of previous traditions. The book follows the evolution of German “memory landscapes” all the way from national unification in 1870–71 through the world wars and political division to reunification in 1990. The memory landscapes of any society may incorporate monuments, historical buildings, memorials and cemeteries, battlefields, streets, or natural environments that foster shared memories of important events or personalities. They may also be designed to divert public attention from embarrassing or traumatic histories. The author argues that in Germany, memory landscapes have taken shape according to four separate paradigms—the national monument, the ruin, the reconstruction, and the trace—which he analyzes in relation to the changing political agendas which have guided them over time. Despite the massive ruptures of Germany's history, we see that significant continuities have served to counterbalance the traumas of the German past.Less

From Monuments to Traces : Artifacts of German Memory, 1870-1990

Rudy Koshar

Published in print: 2000-07-18

This book provides a powerful framework in which to examine the subject of German collective memory, which for more than a half century has been shaped by the experience of Nazism, World War II, and the Holocaust. Finding the assumptions of many writers and scholars shortsighted, the author surveys the evidence of postwar German memory in the context of previous traditions. The book follows the evolution of German “memory landscapes” all the way from national unification in 1870–71 through the world wars and political division to reunification in 1990. The memory landscapes of any society may incorporate monuments, historical buildings, memorials and cemeteries, battlefields, streets, or natural environments that foster shared memories of important events or personalities. They may also be designed to divert public attention from embarrassing or traumatic histories. The author argues that in Germany, memory landscapes have taken shape according to four separate paradigms—the national monument, the ruin, the reconstruction, and the trace—which he analyzes in relation to the changing political agendas which have guided them over time. Despite the massive ruptures of Germany's history, we see that significant continuities have served to counterbalance the traumas of the German past.